Another ‘Sahib’ busted in food stamp fraud scheme

05/20/2011 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, wow, it’s a big one—$3 million dollar rip-off of the US taxpayer—from (surprise!) Minnesota.

From WCCO (CBS Minnesota):

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – The owner of a St. Paul market was indicted in Minneapolis Federal Court Wednesday for trafficking about $3 million in food stamps, according to court documents.

Khaffak Sahib Ansari, 45 of Arden Hills, was charged Wednesday with three counts of food stamp fraud in connection with the crime. Ansari had owned the Stryker Avenue Market in St. Paul.

The indictment alleges that between January 2006 and Oct. 7, 2010, Ansari exchanged food stamps for money and ineligible merchandise.

$ 3 Million!!!

Court documents also listed that between 2004 and 2009, the average food stamp redemption for a store of similar size was just less than $324,000. Stryker’s redemptions during that time period came out to about $3.1 million.

If convicted, Ansari faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Check out the comments! As is often the case they are more interesting than one more ho-hum story about food stamp fraud. A common question: what is his immigration status? One commenter wants the sellers to be arrested too, not just the store owner who purchases the benefit, because of course it follows that in order for the store owner to break the law he needs food stamp recipients to also break the law by turning their stamps into cold hard cash (from you, the taxpayer).

One of the earlier posts I wrote on Food Stamp Fraud is still one of my favorites—an Arab-American publication questioned why all the food stamp scammers in a big bust all had Arab names. One politically correct attorney said, ‘nah, it’s just a weird coincidence—nothing to do with ethnicity—kind of like white biker gangs hanging around together and committing crimes.’ I kid you not!

Ethiopian man gets out of jail, but could be deported for acid attack

05/20/2011 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

In another diversity-is-strength report this morning, we learn that a Minneapolis man who plead guilty to throwing acid at his old girlfriend could still be deported. In the meantime he will continue counseling for mental health problems at taxpayer expense. This 29-year-old Ethiopian is either a former refugee or asylee (the mainstream media rarely gives us immigration information, I suspect because it doesn’t fit their template). Hat tip: Cliff

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune (boy these Minneapolis reporters are busy with immigrant conflict stories):

A Minneapolis man who threw battery acid in his ex-girlfriend’s face last year won’t spend time behind bars if he remains law-abiding.

Before getting a stayed, 15-month prison sentence Wednesday, Jarso Yohannes Adem, 29, tried to withdraw his guilty plea to second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, a felony.

He claimed he was not aware his conviction could cause him to be deported back to Ethiopia. The Minnesota Court of Appeals this week ordered that a man could withdraw his plea to simple robbery because he was not told of deportation risks.

Hennepin County District Judge Susan Robiner refused Adem’s request, saying he’d made an informed decision to plead guilty in February.

Adem was charged last September for the attack on Semira Mohammed, 31, of St. Louis Park. Charges say he approached her on the street near her home and, after she refused to talk to him, splashed battery acid on her from a bottle. She suffered burns to her face, neck and hand but was not permanently disfigured. She was not present in court.

Adem’s attorney, Mark Miller, said that although his client was informed of the law regarding his immigrant status, mental health issues including depression inhibited him from making a fully informed plea. Miller said his client’s reasoning is like that of a teenager.

“Mr. Adem seems to never quite grasp exactly what is going on,” Miller said.

Isn’t diversity beautiful!

Through an interpreter, Adem expressed no remorse for the crime, saying Mohammed repeatedly lied to him.

Adem must continue to receive mental health treatment and remain law-abiding for three years to avoid prison. He also must stay away from Mohammed.

So, how is a guy like this ever going to function in a civilized society? I think I like that recommendation I made in my earlier diversity-is-strength alert this morning (about Somali drug traffickers)—his care should come out of the Refugee contractors’ budgets! If he is deported, his airfare home to Africa should come out of their hides too (which is still the taxpayers’ hide but at least we would know which federal agency and NGO were responsible for his presence among us).

Social engineering brought Native Americans and Somalis in conflict

05/20/2011 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’ve written about this subject before (here is one recent post)—how Native Americans and Somalis have been feuding in Minneapolis but now a new wave of love and peace (or so we are told) is washing over a section of Minneapolis where Somalis were resettled in parts of the city that Native Americans had deemed their own.

Here is a story from last week that gives us some of the background. The federal government in its infinite wisdom wanted to get Native Americans off the reservation in the 50’s and 60’s and get them to “assimilate” in cities.

From the Star Tribune:

Old and new federal policies created the collision of cultures along Franklin Avenue.

During the 1950s and 1960s, the federal government relocated many American Indians from reservations to cities.
“The idea was to assimilate us. Get us off the reservation,” said Terri Yellowhammer, an attorney and Friendship Committee member.

Thousands of Indians moved to Minneapolis. Most settled in the East Phillips neighborhood, making it home to one of the largest concentrations of urban Indians in the country.

Franklin Avenue became known as “Indian country,” and to this day, the street holds a special place in American Indian history. Civil rights activists met there in the 1960s and 1970s and founded the American Indian Movement. [Interesting bit of information isn’t it?]

The first housing project in the nation to give preference to American Indians was built near Franklin.

Today, the avenue is seeing a renaissance, having just been designated the “American Indian Cultural Corridor,” with banners hanging from streetlights and new Indian-owned art spaces and businesses opening.

Then came the Somalis and the clash of cultures!

Wade Keezer, another Friendship Committee member, remembers when the first wave of Somali refugees started appearing on south Minneapolis streets in the early 1990s, the women covered head to toe in flowing fabrics.

“I thought they were some new type of Catholic nun,” he said.

The federal government chose Minnesota as a resettlement site for the thousands escaping Somalia’s bloody civil war. Many came to the East Phillips neighborhood where rent was cheap. [and the Minnesota welfare was good—ed]

Soon, Somali-owned businesses* started opening, and the grumbling began.

Now, at least according the Leftwing media, they are all trying to patch things up. But, I bet it’s like Lewiston, ME where the animosity continues just below the surface. [note to RRWHAT?, a reporter friend of mine just made a little trip to Lewiston].

Sometime if you have extra time, visit our category on ‘community destabilization’ where we discuss how far-left Alinskyites (and Soros groupies, like the Asst. Secretary for Refugees in the State Dept) know that by creating chaos they can ultimately bring ‘change’ in our form of government. After all, people living in Norman Rockwell-like towns have no interest in bringing down capitalism, but stressed-through-conflict and destabilized people dependent on government do.

* More on these refugee businesses in an upcoming post.

Border Patrol testimony: Canadian border greater threat then Mexican border

05/20/2011 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’m trying to clear out bits of news piling up on my desk. Here is a report from CNS News that caught my eye. We already know there is much back and forth between Somalis across our northern border. One of the most interesting cases—now swept under the rug—was the case of the Canadian Somali who died in a Denver hotel room with enough cyanide to kill hundreds just before the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

From CNS News:

Washington (CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency has apprehended more suspected terrorists on the nation’s northern border than along its southern counterpart, CBP Commissioner Alan Bersin said Tuesday.

“In terms of the terrorist threat, it’s commonly accepted that the more significant threat” comes from the U.S.-Canada border, Bersin told a hearing of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and Border Security.

Bersin attributed the situation, in part, to the fact that the U.S. and Canada do not share information about people placed on their respective “no-fly” lists. As a result, individuals deemed a threat who fly into one country may then cross the land border into the other.

There is more, read on.

Diversity is strength alert! Massive drug bust involving Somalis/Yemenis

05/20/2011 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Eighteen US citizens or legal permanent residents of Somali and Yemeni origin have been arrested according to a press release from the US Attorney’s Office, Eastern Division of Virginia, for an international conspiracy to transport the illegal drug, khat, into the United States and to distribute it to at least 15 states. Hat tip: Patrick.

The next time you hear someone say, “I’m o.k. with legal immigration, it’s illegal immigration I’m opposed to,” ponder this story. These legal immigrants hailed from Virginia, Maryland, Ohio and New York (the press release names each one).

Their ‘profits’ were sent out of the country—to terrorists perhaps?

From the US Attorney’s Office:

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Eighteen individuals have been arrested for their alleged roles in an international conspiracy trafficking more than 4.4 million grams of khat throughout the United States. All 18 were taken into custody yesterday, including 10 in Northern Virginia, two in Maryland, four in New York, and two in Ohio.

Neil H. MacBride, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and John P. Torres, Special Agent in Charge for ICE’s, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Washington, D.C., made the announcement after the charges were unsealed.

According to court documents, Yonis Muhudin Ishak, a/k/a “Yunis Sheikal” and “Shak,” a naturalized U.S. citizen from Somalia living in Arlington, Va , is the leader of a conspiracy that allegedly uses human couriers to transport khat into the United States from England, Canada, and Holland. In addition, the alleged conspirators sent packages of khat to the U.S. via the U.S. Postal Service and delivery companies. The conspiracy would then allegedly distribute the khat, via couriers and the postal system, to at least 15 states, including California, Washington, Tennessee, New York, and the Washington, D.C.-metro area. The conspirators allegedly transmit proceeds from their drug sales to others in England, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda.

Fresh khat leaves contain the drug cathinone, an addictive stimulant with effects similar to but less intense than that of methamphetamine or cocaine. Over time, the cathinone in khat leaves degrades, and the court documents allege that Ishak placed priority on ensuring the khat smuggled into the United States was fresh. He allegedly used at least 14 couriers, whom he would pay about $1,000 per trip to travel to England and return with khat smuggled in their passenger luggage. Ishak and other conspirators would use rented vehicles to provide couriers with transportation to and from the airport and designate locations throughout the United States for couriers to retrieve or ship khat to conspirators in other parts of the country. At times, Ishak is accused of suggesting that conspirators use their children as couriers to evade detection.

Read it all and check out the perps! Maybe someone in the refugee resettlement business will recognize some of their past downtrodden kids just looking for the American Dream!

In addition here is a Reuters story on the case—they are looking at 20 years in jail (add that to the cost of the Refugee Resettlement program). LOL! Come to think of it, that’s a good idea, how about if the cost of imprisoning former refugees and asylees comes out of the Refugee budget!

Use our search function to learn more about Khat.

*For new readers: We have admitted well over 100,000 Somali refugees to the US. To check out the numbers visit this post, one of our most widely read posts over the last few years. In FY2010 which ended September 30th the US State Department resettled 4,884 Somalis (here) to towns near you.

Also, after being closed for nearly two years, the US State Department is on the verge of resuming the fraud-ridden family reunification program that admitted as many as 36,000 Somalis fraudulently to the US between 2003 and 2008. See the latest on new regulations, here. The State Department has probably re-opened the program by now.